This is Roku's brand new streaming stick. It's only $50 (half the price of the last…
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It turns out that you really don't have to spend that much money to get all of the goodness of streaming videos, music, and plenty of your apps up on your television at will. Available now, the Roku stick beats out fellow budget pick Chromecast for a number of reasons. One, it carries more apps that you want, like Amazon, Vudu, and Showtime. Sure, Chromecast will keep adding partners, especially now that Google has opened up its developer SDK, but who knows how long you'll be waiting?

Chromecast has always been great at what it does, but up until now it's done fairly little.…
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For just $15 more on the Roku, you not only get 1000+ channels, but a remote with which to navigate through them. Yes, you can use your phone to do that with other boxes and dongles, but some folks just want a good ol' fashioned clicker. The Amazon device, meanwhile is $100, and though you're paying more for the speed of its quad-core processor, as well as gaming features, you might not even care. If you're a gamer, you've almost definitely got something better. Fire TV, disappointingly enough, lacks HBO Go and Vudu.

You could also make an argument for the Roku 3, but it comes with a lot of features that most people really won't use, like a headphone jack for private listening and the ability to play Angry Birds. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just a lot more money for a little more use.

How many Roku models are there? Like, twelve? But it doesn't matter: the newest one is here,…
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Yes, if you're a gamer you should look at Xbox or PS4. And if you're deeply, deeply invested in Apple's ecosystem, Apple TV is more than worth a look. But for pure streaming for your buck, the Roku Streaming Stick seems like your best bet.